Teachers' socio-emotional knowledge in nurturing the morals of children after the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Preschool teachers in Malaysia face problems in teaching socio-emotional components due to a lack of teaching aids, structure, and specific guidance. This study aims to identify teachers' socio-emotional knowledge in fostering children's morals after the COVID-19 pandemic. This study uses a quantitative approach where questionnaires are used as research instruments to collect data. This study was conducted on 124 teachers of TABIKA PERPADUAN in Perak and Selangor. The data were analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Science Version 27 (SPSS 27). The findings of the study showed that 75.0% of teachers created stimuli in teaching and learning that encouraged socio-emotional development in nurturing children's morals; 71.8% of teachers took into account the factors that influenced children's socio-emotional skills in nurturing children's morals; 67.7% of teachers used teaching methods that focused on aspects of socio-emotional skills in nurturing children's morals; 66.9% of teachers implemented socio-emotional skills to nurture children's morals; 66.1% of teachers detected the levels of mastery of socio-emotional skills in nurturing children's morals; 64.5% of teachers applied elements of socio-emotional skills that are appropriate to nurture children's morals and provided feasible activities to help develop children's socio-emotional skills. In addition, only 62.9% of teachers mastered the socio-emotional skills that need to be included in teaching to nurture children's morals; 62.1% of teachers used appropriate socio-emotional skills strategies in fostering children's morals; and 58.1% of teachers attached importance to measures to build socio-emotional skills to nurture children's morals. In conclusion, TABIKA teachers have good socio-emotional knowledge in nurturing children's morals after the COVID-19 pandemic. Next can have a positive impact in the implementation of teaching and learning integration of socio-emotional skills in TABIKA.